I have been writing about our school and the children of our school in the past week. Now the school has found more and more back to its usual daily rhythm of yoga, classes, lunch and playing time. The new children are getting used to the other students and the smallest ones slowly get used to sitting in their benches without jumping up and running around the classroom the whole time. It is nice for us to get to know more of them and their stories.
In the last week, while settling all children in their classes, we got to know some of the new children a bit better. One girl is called Richa and when her parents came with her to admit her in our school, they told that in the village where they had lived, she had already passed the fourth grade. The teacher who had a talk with the girl to see which class she would go to in our school, decided to put her in our third grade. That is nothing uncommon, the standard of the village schools is mostly not very good.
When the teachers started their lessons however, Richa could not follow in the third grade – her English was not good enough. So the teachers decided to give her a seat in the first grade. But when they noticed that she cannot tell A from B in English, they told her to start in our lowest class for now. And there she is, sitting with all the younger kids, learning her alphabet in English. If she learns fast, there is a chance to come to the first class in a few months.
In Richa’s new class there is a boy, Arjun, whom everyone who has once visited our school, would recognize. Arjun had Polio and that is why his legs are now deformed. That does not keep him however from doing great yoga and also not from running in direction home with the other kids once school is over.
There are only six children who don’t need to run home when school is over – because they are already at home. Last year we had three boys living at the Ashram, Jaysingh, Pawan and Mohit. When Pawan came back from a visit to his family in the summer holidays, he brought his younger brother Guddu along to stay here and go to our school. Mohit, similarly, brought his cousin Pranshu. And somewhere the parents of Ayush heard of us and brought him to the Ashram because they cannot afford raising him.
Sometimes people get confused whether our school or Ashram is an orphanage but actually all of these children have their parents and families and we only take care of them for a certain time period. There is only one full orphan in our school, Balram. He lives with his aunt and uncle. There are several children who only have one parent left, too.
It is exciting to get to know them all and it feels good to be able to help them on their way with a good and solid education. They will have a good time at our school and we hope that they will later get a job that pays them enough to send their own children to a school with a good standard of education, too.
I am beyond excited to get to know these kids and become a friend, to play their games and to understand a small piece of the lives, it’s something that I look forward to greatly! I think it’s amazing that these children have come here and they are accepted as family and loved as family it something that is not seen too often in the west I feel but it’s something that’s we should learn.